


Promises Unkept

by DarkPanda



Series: War Crimes and Other Criminals [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Multi, Porn With Plot, Prostitution, steam ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28928655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPanda/pseuds/DarkPanda
Summary: Having escaped her marriage to Setzer, Celes Chere's only desire is to get back to the Returners' hideout to discover why her allies never came. She will stop at nothing to get home.WARNING: Super dark. Please read the tags!
Relationships: Celes Chere/Original Male Character(s)
Series: War Crimes and Other Criminals [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121693
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Last Time On War Crimes

**Author's Note:**

> Again, please please please read the tags! They will update as the series progresses, but you can absolutely expect dark and rapey smut. I don't condone anything like this in real life, but fanfic is where my dark fantasies live.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recapping Part 1 of War Crimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, and with the promised continuation of Celes’s story! Just don't expect regular updates and you won't be disappointed.

Celes has torn free from grip of her ‘husband.’ Setzer had forced Celes into a marriage as part of the worst gamble Celes ever lost. She had tried to cheat Setzer at a coin toss, promising him a marriage she had never intended to happen and using a double-headed coin to ensure the outcome.

The ploy failed. Setzer discovered the attempt to cheat and took her bet as a forfeit. Then her allies, who had planned on joining her takeover of the airship Blackjack, never showed. The Returners, rebels against the Gestahlian Empire, had badly needed the airship to strike at the protected heart of the empire, and they had planned to help Celes take it over while Setzer was distracted.

Help did not arrive. Celes heard the sounds of combat before the Blackjack lifted away, leaving her alone in the clutches of a man convinced that he had a right to her, willing or not. Months of rapes under the guise of marital right left Celes in a family way. Her friends had never come to her rescue. Locke, the man she might be in love with, hadn't come to her rescue. So Celes freed herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not having expected to escape, Celes stumbles to Albrook, desperately searching for a way to get as far from Setzer as possible.

Celes tried not to run away from the field where Setzer’s airship dominated the sky like an overwrought gambling parlor bloated with horror and dysfunction. She was pregnant and alone, fleeing on foot from a long imprisonment, making it all the more important not to draw attention. Her sole goal had been to escape Setzer’s airship. She hadn't known when or how she’d manage it, so she hadn't planned farther than getting her feet on the ground. 

Still, there were basic principles she could apply to being alone, without resouces, and cut off from backup. Like trying not to appear like she was fleeing the scene of a murder in a badly sized sailor's uniform. And fleeing to where? The infamous Imperial general who has defected to the rebel cause was a little recognizable, and currently trapped in the heart of the empire. 

As Celes made herself amble toward the outskirts of the city, she reminded herself that there were worse places she could have won free than Albrook, the largest port city on the continent. The clothing she had taken off the airship’s carpenter didn't fit her shorter, curvier frame very well, but it was more disguise than nothing. She kept the cap pulled low over her face and tried to shuffle slowly along, like a sailor shirking duries.

Her mind tried to run strategy and probabilities, but it kept getting distracted by the sudden terror that she’d hear an outcry behind her. Setzer was supposed to be on business all day, but he could get back early and discover her missing and find her and—

_Stop. No point thinking about it. If that happens, it happens. You need to plan for now._

Celes angled toward the waterfront. Albrook's port bustled, longshore workers busy loading and unloading supplies into the empire's more conventional steam ships. She couldn't stay in Albrook. The iodine stink of the sea and Celes’s barely controlled anxiety both made her want to vomit. Or maybe it was the pregnancy. She barely showed. Only someone who knew that her stomach was normally soldier-flat would recognize the faint curve there for what it was, but that didn't stop the unwanted pregnancy from making her sick and miserable.

After Celes paused in the shadowy overhang of a warehouse, she made herself stop and take a breath. Ships moved. She was dressed like a sailor. Sailors often changed ships in a port. It was likely that there would be at least one ship that could use a hand. The beginning of a plan settled into place, and the frantic beating of Celes’s her slowed.

As Celes lurked on the waterfront, overheard snippets of conversation gave her a sense of which ships had recently arrived and which expected to depart that afternoon. It had to be that afternoon. She couldn't risk trying to overnight in Albrook. Setzer was too well-connected from his mercantile ventures. Her only chance was to be gone before he stated looking for her. Which he could be doing right now--stop.

Celes thought four ships were possibilities, cargo instead of troop transport, and leaving with the next tide. Three rejections later, Celes found herself looking up the gangway of the Morning Star. The Star was an old steam clunker, and the last ship on her list. From what she’d heard, it was far from prime employment. The ship was past due on repair, and it ran with less crew than it needed because the captain was notoriously stingy. At least it was the sort of ship that always had open berths, and she would allow herself to be hired cheap. It was literally her last oprion.

On the ramp up to the Morning Star, Celes fixed her story in her mind and tried to move like the rest of the sailors she saw. She was Elzen, a boy who ran away to sea but was now homesick and just wanted to get back to a sweetheart in Narshe. Being a teenager would hopefully explain her build, voice, and lack of facial hair. Jumping ship should hopefully explain her lack of references, this time.

The moment Celes stepped onto the ship, she was accosted by a grimy, burly sailor. “Don't know you.”

Celes pitched her voice as low as it would go. “I'm looking for a berth.”

“Wait here. I’ll get the mate,” the sailor said. He disappeared into a hatch set into the deck. 

Celes waited. She couldn't have moved even if she wanted to. The slave-crown drug Setzer had used to keep her compliant on the Blackjack hadn't worn off, and wouldn't before evening. Any direct command imprinted on her mind and held there like glue.

The burly sailor emerged a few minutes later with a leathery-skinned older man. The mate said something in a low voice, and the burly one shuffled off. The weathered mate peered at Celes with squinted dark eyes. “You the boy who wants to hire on?”

Celes tried to straighten without showing too much of her face while the mate sized her up. He snorted. “You're barely larger than a pup. Not sure what we'd do with you.”

“I don't need much pay.” Celes tried to sound more like a sullen boy than a frightened and desperate woman. “I just want to get home to Narshe.”

“Let's see your hands.”

Celes’s heart sank, but she held out her hands. Another mate had asked the same thing, then rejected her because her hands didn't look used to work. Her calluses had all but disappeared, and sword calluses barely resembled labor calluses anyway.

The mate's head cocked a little. “Hmph. Well.” His tone had changed to something speculative. “I'll take you to see the captain, we’ll see what he a says. Come on.”

Celes should have felt relieved, but she didn't. She felt tired, headachy, hungry, and wary as she followed the weathered mate across the hot metal deck to the boxy deckhouse in the ship's waist, regularly dodging hurrying sailors. She wasn't even sure what to call the boxy deck structure. She was rapidly discovering how little steam ships and airships had in common, besides the smells of oil and hot metal.

She followed the mate down a bare hall lined with a few narrow doors. Hatches, she reminded herself, then promptly forgot. The mate took her to the very back. “Captain’s stateroom,” he said, tapping at a door. “Wait here.”

Before there was any response from inside, the mate cracked the door and stepped through. He didn't close it fully behind him, but even through Celes tried to eavesdrop, her feet were glued to the floor and she couldn’t pick out words from the low, brief conversation.

The door opened and the leathery face squinted at her. “Captain wants to see you.”

The mate beckoned Celes, and her feet unstuck from the floor. As she stepped through the door, a sense of profound dismay rose in her chest. The stateroom was spacious but grubby, soiled dishes and sticky glasses left out on the small, rail-edged desk. The captain lounged in an upholstered chair. He was a short, sun-browned man, suety in the way of formerly active men who have gone soft, not fat but not fit. He had a few days’ whiskers on his face, more gray there than he had in his lank brown hair. He had a greasy look that had nothing to do with engine oil. Both the chair and the captain’s clothing were stained.

He was about what Celes expected from the gossip, but it was a dismaying sight all the same. 

“Close the door,” the captain said to the mate. To Celes, he said, “Take a seat.”

Celes shoved a dirty shirt off the indicated chair and sat.

“Kerf says your story is that you’re a boy looking to work cheap to get home,” the captain said. Celes nodded, wondering whether Kerf was the burly sailor or the mate. 

“Well.” The captain leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk as he eyed Celes. “We don't have a spot for a boy.”

Something in his delivery was predatory. Rather than disappointment, Celes felt her wariness twitch up a notch. Quick as a striking snake, the captain reached across the desk. Celes would have been faster, but she allowed him to grab her hand. His soggy grip moved up Celes’s arm, feeling the shape of her wrist-bones through her stolen shirt. “But,” the captain’s tongue wet his lips, “we do have an entire cabin we could spare. For the right sort of woman.”


End file.
